Tappendens

"And yet, no amount of preparation could eliminate surprises. Bidwill remembers wandering around after the purchase was completed thinking, ‘OK, what have we bought?’ They found warehouses full of Lada cars and tractors that Tappendens had taken from Amalgamated Dairies, which had earlier traded them with the Russians for mutton. How on earth would they sell these ‘awful, old-fashioned, outdated cars?’ Not easily, was the answer, although the tractors weren’t too bad."

"He is the greatest entrepreneurial businessman I’ve come across, head and shoulders above everyone else, with a very clear vision of what needs to be done. And though it may have looked from the outside as if he took great risks, he was actually very risk-averse; in fact he basically eliminated risk. He did his homework carefully, so that even though Tappendens was the biggest transaction that any of us had been involved with, we didn’t see it as a huge gamble."